Questions On The Oly Plastic Housing For E-m5, Pt-ep08

[EskilJ]

Hi,
I've used the Meikon housing for my e-m5 for a while, but I've had some trouble with it, and consider the oly housing, now it seems to be on sale, at least in Hong Kong.

So please post the disadvantages of this housing. Nauticam is unfortunately out of my price range.
It appears to be sold without port, is that true? My old rig is an e-pl1, so I've got a standard port there.
Is it one of the housings where you should lift up the flash halfway? Does it mean you have to use under water presets?

I would love to use my 12-40 under water. the closer focus (for low visibility waters), fast focus and sharpness would be great. You need to buy a port from the OLY SLRs and a converter for that. Does the lens need to go in from the front for that? sounds inconvenient, if you need to dismount the port and lens to get the camera out. Please confirm that this is the case.
Any other drawbacks? I was reasonable satisfied with my e.pl1 oly housing.
Best regards, Eskil

 

[Furnari]

I too shoot in cold, low viz conditions. I have the Oly housing for my M1, and it's pretty similar to the one for the M5 (it uses the same port system). I'm happy with it, so I'll share what I know.

Ports for your pl1 housing will work with a Zen adapter.

I use the 12-40 with both the old Olympus SLR flat port (with a wet diopter adapter) and an Inon 170mm dome. You do not have to mount the lens from the front, and port changes are easy. I love the 12-40 for both underwater and topside- I've posted a couple of threads here on Scubaboard with info and sample shots.
As an aside, I'm currently sitting in an airport on my way home from Bonaire where I used both the 12-40 and the oly 7-14 f2.8. I'd have to say that I liked diving with the 12-40 better because of the flexibility it offers.

Not sure about the flash position for the M5, but in the M1 you shoot with the flash down after enabling an underwater setting. However, you do not have to actually shoot in the underwater setting. As I recall, Bluewater Photo has an excellent guide to settings for the OMDs that explains the process. Hope this helps.

 

[Ardy]

Hi - I have an OLY housing for EM5 and I like them. The only issue I face (see above thread) is that I cannot use back button focus as I have to set a button to big fish/little fish.

Apart from that its fine. Had an OLY housing for my E-520 before this camera and found that good as well.

 

[vsc]

The Olympus strobe can be modified by moving one wire such that the camera believes the strobe is in the up position even though it is in the down position that is necessary for the Olympus housing. This means that you don't need to assign the big/little fish function to a button, thus freeing it up for other functions. Note my zoom lenses are manual thus I don't need the big/little fish function.

I purchased a used flash off of Ebay for less than $15 and made the mod on that strobe. There is another thread in the DIY forum which discusses modifying the strobe for reduced cycle time which gave me the idea to create the mod. The same thread mostly describes the disassembly procedure though for an older version of the strobe.

 

[Ardy]

Hi I sorted out the BF/LF issue by assigning it to the down button. Then you press on the down button (aprox. 5 secs) after setting it to BF/LF and the icon disappears and you can use teh camera normally SAFor MF and the flash will fire in the down position.

Don't forget to set the flash to manual 1/64.

Works well just did 4 dives shooting macro and all was well.